Customer Reviews

Fibonacci Analysis (Bloomberg Financial)

5 star:		(15)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Fibonacci seems to be an area of technical analysis that is very poorly covered in the literature. There are several books but many of them are by writers of newsletters (and the books often spend page after page on historical irrelevant detail). This doesn't automatically make the books bad, but it is likely that the author will hold back certain information.

This book is not for beginners. I would buy Robert Miner's book to get the received wisdom on Fibonacci retracements and extentions. Then I would experiment trading on those ideas for a couple of years. Anything above this level isn't in the public domain and you have to be prepared to spend a lot of time doing research. If you want to learn more you can consider buying this book or another specialised book (Greenblatt or Boroden). But be aware: The further you read this book the more opaque it becomes. I think you also need to subscribe to the author's newsletter. So this author does hold back information, but in the earlier chapter the writing is fairly straightforward and some testable ideas are presented.

Personally I have decided not to go down this route. I do believe there is value in basic Fibonacci ratios, but there is too much mysticism in the advanced literature for my comfort. Maybe I'm missing something, but I take the risk.

For a solid primer and intermediate description of Fibonacci and trading, I would recommend Boroden's Fibonacci Trading : How to Master the Time and Price Advantage. Many of the ideas are also found in Miner's High Probability Trading Strategies: Entry to Exit Tactics for the Forex, Futures, and Stock Markets (Wiley Trading). The authors seem to be friends so a lot of overlap in material. Another Fibonacci book that I would rate higher than the current book isHarmonic Trading, Volume One: Profiting from the Natural Order of the Financial Markets (Pearson Custom Business Resources).

I've still given this book 3 stars because I suppose it is cutting edge and if you are interested in the area it is worth getting other people's ideas for forward your own thinking. Still I'm on the borderline of giving the book only two starts because it could have been written in a much clearer way.

UPDATE 2011: I now have much less patience with poor quality trading books. When I wrote the original review I still believed that the author was honestly trying to convey her knowledge to the best of her ability. I will change the rating to one star.

I have read this book twice and started using the confluence zones. Now the book is used like a daily reference manual.

Keep in mind that the other reviews you see above are correct; knowledge of technical analysis is helpful in understanding this information. I have been investing and trading for several years and I have also accumulated 100 books on the subject. None of these books ever compelled me to write to the author and thank them for writing their book; that is until this one. Constance has a gift for teaching. Being brilliant helps too! This book is required reading for the serious trader.
I am amazed at what happens in the confluence zones!! I am getting better and better at drawing the correct Fib Levels and my zones are becoming meaningful and respected. This makes me freak out a little because these are levels I would never see otherwise; they have no meaning until you find them!! (if that makes any sense at all)I know several traders who think they are using Fibonacci Levels. Now I recognize that they are using Fibonacci all wrong. I was too; before I read this book.

My advice; get the book, read it, read it, read it; then practice like you have never practiced before.

Tools are only as good as the hand they find themselves in; be committed and this will amaze you too.

This book might be more appropriately titled: "How Constance Brown Makes Fibonacci Analysis" so not to mislead readers into thinking this is a exhaustive exploration of the subject. The content is laid out as a narrative with little effort made on critically establishing contexts and criteria of the author's analysis/decisions. In other words, this book is more of a operator's manual than an educational piece.

Setting aside my opinions of the validity of Fibonacci analysis and the author's obvious success in the traders' world, my quarrel with this book is on the very, very troubling prose construction and content organization:

1. No provision of a master list of the o-so-important 'internal markers' that the author keeps alluding to throughout the text. Those 'markers' are sprinkled here and there, seemingly inconsistently applied to each case study.

2. Starting in Chapter 2, there are excessive usage of "I will discuss this later" without making clear references, well, later.

3. The utility of this book is hampered by its content organization. The reader will likely have to do a lot of note keeping (plus organizing and reconciling the notes eventually), which would not have been necessary if more work is done by an editor. The writing probably would not fare well in any college-level English course, as an example from page 46:
"(paragraph break)
But how can I be confident this is the price support level the market will respect for a significant rebound? From this simple method alone, I cannot answer this latter question. For this reason, we need to continue.
(paragraph break)"

Unfortunately, I must say this is a haphazard attempt at a subject I find very interesting, by a trader I respect, and from a publisher I trust. I certainly expected a lot more from a piece of work that is introduced as a author's legacy work.

Constance Brown is a very intelligent person. I said that first because this is not the type of investing book that deals in general market tactics and strategies that most people write and can write. If you read this book you might find yourself(as I did) going back and reviewing things before you get the hang of it.

Fibonacci systems are not easily understood if they are to be implemented correctly. This book covers all you'll need to understand and implement Fibonacci systems in your technical analysis, except for the software obviously. Like she says in the book, don't feel discouraged if you don't get it right away. Keep at it and keep researching and tempering your skill.

I wish Mrs. Brown would write a series on Technical Analysis(she mentions other topics that she would like to write about in the book). She has written other books but I'd like to see them republished or some written anew.

All-in-all a great book. Not for beginners. Definitely rewarding.

Pluses: A first(or near it) of it's kind. Deep subject reviewed and explained. Author has authority and knowledge on subject.

Minuses: Book might be out of reach for some leading to disappointment. Definitely requires study to fully understand.

This book was a big disappointment. I expected more from Bloomberg Press. The author takes this subject and makes it way more complicated than it needs to be. I ended up doing a Google search and downloading a free trading magazine article on constructing Fib Lines and Confluence and got more out of it than the book.

I day trade using Fibonacci patterns as my primary methodology so I am not a stranger to this approach, and I was looking forward to increasing my technical knowledge of this pattern; however, I found this book exceedingly difficult to follow. It is poorly written, poorly organized, and filled with diagrams that are only partially explained. One has to also wade through a great deal of pseuodo-historical and pseudo-mathematical balderdash that has nothing to do with trading but which has a great deal to do with the author's desire to impress us with her erudition.
Maybe Ms. Brown is the great and wonderful technician that she repeatedly tells us she is, but she certainly isn't a pedagogue.

The book should be called a "A History on the Golden Ratio" since its mostly a almost complete history on the 1.618 Golden Ratio and its discovery by major figures in mathematics.

The book is incomplete in its application of the Fibonacci levels and golden ratio, But very insightful in the little information of the how and the why the markets Contract and Expand, using certain charts that fit the authors theory. My guess is that you have to buy the rest of her books or attend her seminars to compensate for the information thats lacking in this book. It's plain to see whats her intention here. Good for her...

Note: I believe the book is not a book for the beginning trader, it becomes more complex in the way of measuring fibonacci retracement with confluence zones later.

This book is complicated and sometimes seems out of focus.
However it teaches something that I haven't found anywhere else : how to correctly select the starting and ending points of a Fibonacci range.
If you look at Alan Farley, Carolyn Boroden or Joe DiNapoli books, you'll see that their method is to identify the low and the high of each swing. I constantly lost money using Fibonacci retracements with their methods and Constance Brown explains why : the market may be contracting or expanding and you may start the range after a gap, at the beginning of a long bar, after the second correction, etc...
I admit it can look very personal and somewhat arbitrary, but once you've done it several times, the beginning and ending points seem to jump out of the chart ; the confluence zones, hidden to most of the traders, come to life and those levels are respected within ticks... it's almost magic (and at least this trading edge won't be duplicated too soon by any computer program) ! This enables you to "predict" where the market will turn and as a consequence, place very tight stops... Very different from what can be taught by several "experts" : "the market should stop retracing between the 38% and 62% retracements" - in this book you'll learn to make very precise predictions : if wrong, you get out with a minimal loss - if right, the trend resumes and you hit jackpot because you can trade a large position, as your exit point is so near the entry !
On the first reading, I didn't get everything and found that the book looses focus on several chapters (discussion on Gann or astronomy for cycle analysis for example). The last chapter, aimed at selecting which confluence zone is more significant, is unclear ... I've read it several time and can't understand how to do it right.
However, all the discussions on the "internal markers" used to define the beginning and ending points of each grid are priceless.
I almost can't place a trade without fib grids on a chart : 5 stars !

Best book on FIB analysis I've read. For serious market students only. I was intimidated by the breadth of knowledge here and had to revisit the book several times. For the price, I expected a bland primer book and instead found a jewel. I thought I was using FIBS correctly as a trader for over a decade. The author is profound at times, like explaining the superiority of Fib ratios over just the numbers:
"The contraction is reality. The math model is theory".

The chapter on expansion targets and confluence in time was worth the price alone and would have paid twice the price.

She covers the history and mystery of Phi without getting lost in it. Then covers PRACTICAL applications and examples without getting lost in that either. The way she conveys complex ideas in simple ways is pure art.

This is not a rehash of static, vanilla FIB techniques. The book revealed "projective" strategies I've never seen before, she's obviously taken FIB analysis to the next level with this.

I would suggest using colored candlecharts, but then that would have been too perfect...perhaps in the next edition.

Most traders/houses on the Street don't divulge their technical trading strategies (why would they?) and she has done just that.

Hope this one gets kept secret, though...

Dear lord. Reading this was like watching paint dry. Bland definitions, descriptions, figures, and revelations. The history portion of the book was the only bearable portion. Most technical analysis books like these have a pulse of some sort, but no. None here. And what is with this author constantly patting herself on the back? There were portions where she would needlessly say 'I can do this quickly and efficiently', 'I have been in the markets for a long time looking at charts', 'most traders do this, but I (THE GREAT CONSTANCE BROWN) do THIS!' Come on. Skip over this book and look up the information you need online. Painful read for someone who is even well-versed on the subject. The writing style is dis-jointed and messy. The content was passable, but directed at a very specific type of trader. Bottom line, seriously, don't buy this book.